Taliban attack cockfight fare, kill 3

Monday, December 03, 2007

The local Taliban killed three people and injured five others in an attack on a cockfight bout at the Shene Ghundae village in Shabqadar tehsil’s Sro Kaley area on Sunday.

Witnesses said the weekly match was in progress when a group of local Taliban appeared from nowhere and opened indiscriminatly fire on the people.

Three persons, Nawar, Bismillah Jan and Mohammad Ali were killed on the spot. Witnesses said that the militants arrived in three pick-up trucks and were armed with sophisticated weapons, including Kalashnikovs. An official of the concerned Sro Kaley police station told Dawn that the militants had entered the area from the adjacent Mohmand Agency. He added that since the militants came through unfrequented routes, it was difficult for police to hunt them down.

The spokesman for the local Taliban, Abdu Nauman Askari, earlier warned the organiser of the cockfighting fare and alleged ringleader of gambling dens in the area, to abandon the ‘anti-Islam’ practices.